


On the Nature of Trust

by quartzguts



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Fluff, Light Romance, M/M, its just the two of them bonding okay, some very slight angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-15
Updated: 2020-06-15
Packaged: 2021-03-04 07:47:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,450
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24729931
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quartzguts/pseuds/quartzguts
Summary: Noctis has to chaperone Ardyn on a tour of the Citadel. What results has world-changing implications.
Relationships: Ardyn Izunia/Noctis Lucis Caelum
Comments: 7
Kudos: 162





	On the Nature of Trust

**Author's Note:**

  * For [starrynoctsky (lightinthehall)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lightinthehall/gifts).



From the moment their eyes first meet, Noctis does not like the Chancellor of Niflheim.

Ardyn Izunia is the kind of shifty looking guy he’s been trained to pick out in crowds. His trenchcoat, bulky and very out of season, practically screams that it’s hiding a knife, or a gun, or maybe something _worse_. Of course, the Chancellor had been thoroughly searched upon entering the Citadel, so there’s no way he’s hiding anything.

Noctis still takes up a subtle defensive stance, ready to summon the Engine Blade if need be. He trusts Cor and his Crownsguard, yes. He doesn't trust Izunia's smarmy grin and deep, mocking bow.

"It is an honor to meet the _fetching_ Prince Noctis of Lucis," he says in a voice that betrays no ill will. They're standing in the Citadel lobby, on the precipice of a long, long peace summit. Most of the Niflheimr delegation is either settling down in their hotel rooms or caught up in meetings already. The Chancellor had insisted on a tour though, and Noctis had been picked to give it to him; no doubt because his dad didn’t want him snooping around the Council chambers, trying to catch word of how the talks are going.

 _“This is for your own protection. You’re not yet king; you don’t need to be involved in such things,”_ his dad had said.

"Sure it is," Noctis mutters, both to Ardyn and his father. He grunts as Ignis delivers a swift yet subtle jab to his side, a warning not to be rude to the visiting dignitary.

"But of course it is! Both your swordsmanship and compassion are of legend, Your Highness." Ardyn sweeps up from his low bow, dropping his hat back onto his mess of red curls. "I am delighted to be in your presence."

Noctis can't help but snort. "Right. Anyway, we might as well get started on the tour now. After today the Citadel is gonna get pretty busy with everything going on." He motions for Ardyn to follow, leaving a worried-looking Ignis behind. Noctis suppresses the urge to roll his eyes. He's not helpless. He can handle a few hours entertaining an annoying diplomat on his own, no matter how sketchy the guy looks.

Ardyn rolls into step beside him. "Ah, yes, the treaty. Such a momentous occasion, don't you agree? Lucis and Niflheim, friends at last."

"I'm not sure we're ever going to be _friends,_ " Noctis says, stopping in front of a black floor to ceiling art installation, engraved with the names of each of the one hundred and thirteen rulers of Lucis and their appropriate titles. They're getting close to the end of the panel. They'll probably have to knock down another wall and install a new one soon. "These are the names of my direct ancestors, all those who have ruled Lucis over the years."

"Fascinating," Ardyn says, not looking at the monument at all. "Tell me, Your Highness, how would you describe a friend?"

He blinks, taken aback. "Excuse me?"

"You said Lucis and Niflheim would not become friends after this summit. And yet, we will no longer be at odds. What is a friend if not someone you can trust not to stab you in the back?"

Noctis's mouth hangs open for a moment, struggling for words. "That's… a friend wouldn't need a legal contract to keep them from attacking their buddies."

"A most interesting insight. I find myself a bit confused, however. Tenebrae and Lucis have a written treaty that dates back centuries, and yet I often hear His Majesty call Tenebrae a _friend_ of Lucis. How do you explain that?"

"I shouldn't have to explain my dad's words to you," Noctis says, half out of habit, but he finds himself searching for an answer regardless. "Tenebrae and Lucis have been amicable for a long time now. Even without the treaty, we could trust them. I don't think I'll ever trust Niflheim, no matter how well the summit goes."

"I appreciate your honesty. Now," Ardyn turns to the monument then, looking all the way up to the top, where the Kings of Yore are written, "if this treaty does survive the test of time, could Niflheim ever achieve that same amicable relationship with Lucis? Allow me to answer my own question; no, it could not. Why is that, you ask?"

Noctis huffs at Ardyn's apparent lack of need for a conversation partner who actually speaks, but he is kind of curious as to the answer. He keeps his mouth shut.

Ardyn continues. "Our values are too different. Lucis and Tenebrae are god-fearing nations. Niflheim worships only itself. Our beliefs, what we think is important—nay, the very way we look at the world is fundamentally incompatible. Where you would look at a snowstorm and see the blessing of Shiva, my people would see only a collection of weather patterns. We will never be 'friends' in the way you describe. And yet," Ardyn turns back to him, smiling wryly, "we need not fight over it. Is that not, in and of itself, a form of friendship?"

Noctis stares at him. "Question."

“Yes?”

“Are you actually smart, or just pretentious?”

Ardyn laughs. A few servants look their way, startled, but quickly hurry on when Noctis glances sheepishly at them.

"Oh dear," Ardyn says. "I think I might like you."

The hint of unease that had settled in his gut when the Niflheimr delegation first entered Insomnia starts to lapse somewhat. "As you should, old man. Come on, our next stop's this way."

\---

The Hall of History is near the Council chambers, where the treaty will be be negotiated once his dad and the Emperor are done hashing out the absolutes. Noctis tries not to think about how well or poorly it might be going and instead directs Ardyn to look up at one of the Lucian royal family's most prized treasures; a mural from times long past, hanging proudly on the wall near the ceiling. "This painting depicts the ancient prophecy foretold in the Cosmogony. The Oracle is shown giving her blessings to the Chosen King—"

"Yes, yes, we all know the tale." Ardyn waves him away. "Tell me, Noctis, what do you think of it all?"

"Who said you could use my name, Chancellor?" Noctis says, crossing his arms. He's secretly relieved at not being forced to recite the story _again,_ the same way he had every day for months in tutoring, repeating it over and over until he got all the details right. "As a prince, don't I rank higher than you?"

"I don't know about that," Ardyn drawls. "Let's say this; I call you Noctis, you call me Ardyn. Deal?"

Noctis snorts. "Fine. So, what do you mean, 'what I think of it all'?"

"The prophecy," Ardyn says simply. His eyes are unreadable. "You are the Chosen King, after all."

Noctis’s mouth dries up. He shifts from foot to foot, thinking. "I try not to think about it."

"Oh? For what reason?"

"It's… it’s uncomfortable." He has no idea why he’s talking about this to _Ardyn_ of all people. He looks up at the paintings, takes in the surreal beauty of the King smiting the daemons, and frowns. "It's all so vague. There's thirteen versions of the Cosmogony, all translated from Ancient Solheim to Middle Lucian to Modern Lucian, and about fifty acceptable interpretations of the prophecy. No one really knows which one is the most accurate. I figured the gods would have come to me by now to parse it out, but…"

"No such luck?" Ardyn asks, impassive.

Noctis bites his lip as he glances at the Chancellor. He shouldn't say it. He _really_ shouldn't say it. But he’s been stewing over this for years, and Ardyn is the only person who’s ever asked how _he_ feels about all this prophecy nonsense, and if he doesn't say it to someone eventually, he feels like he'll explode.

Shit, he's going to say it, isn't he?

He tugs on Ardyn's jacket, stands up on his toes as the Chancellor leans down, and whispers "I think the gods are hiding something," in his ear. "I worship them, but I'm not sure if I trust them."

Ardyn lets out a scandalized gasp. "How sacrilegious of you, Noctis."

'Don’t tell anyone,' he means to say. "Noct," he says.

"Noct," Ardyn amends.

They stand beneath the tapestry for a while longer in contemplative silence. The winged Oracle seems to be staring down from her place in the painted sky, watching them. Judging the worth of their souls.

"Wanna see something cool?" Noctis asks, and drags Ardyn out of the room before he can reply.

\---

They stand in the center of the planetarium, looking up at the stars. Ardyn hums and listens to Noctis talk about the constellations, pointing them out with his finger. The last time he was here was with Ignis, when he was a child. Truthfully, he has no idea why he brought Ardyn here. It’s not a particularly well known part of the Citadel, as the museum has a much more high tech planetarium just down the road. This room was actually supposed to be torn down and replaced with a regular theatre, before his dad blocked the project.

Noctis is glad. He has nice memories here. He doesn’t have a lot of those, so he’d like to hold onto them.

“You know,” Ardyn says as he trails off, having named all the constellations in the western sky. “You could simply go outside and look at the real stars.”

“Can’t,” Noctis says. “There’s too much light pollution in Insomnia.”

“Yes, I can see why that would be a problem.” Ardyn slides into one of the chairs, reclining back to stare straight up at the simulated sky. “Have you never been outside of the city?”

“Once.” Noctis doesn’t have to elaborate; everyone in Eos knows what happened to the Crown Prince of Lucis twelve years ago. It was the biggest news story at the time, the thing that shifted the tide of war. After the assassination attempt his dad had gone on the offensive, burning Niflheim endlessly in revenge for his injured son.

Noctis thinks he might’ve preferred for Regis to stay at his bedside as he recovered, but it’s all in the past now. Maybe in a different world, the king stayed with his son and the kingdom suffered as a result. He’ll never know.

“I’m deeply sorry about all of that,” Ardyn says.

“Why are you apologizing? You weren’t even the Chancellor when it happened, right?” Noctis asks.

“No. ‘Chancellor of Niflheim’ wasn’t a position then. It was invented to keep the Emperor in check. In his old age, he needs extra, shall we say, guidance.”

“So why aren’t you in the Council chambers _guiding_ him?” Noctis says, slumping over in the seat next to him.

“Why aren’t you guiding your father?” Ardyn retorts.

Noctis still isn’t sure why he’s telling Ardyn these things, but… “Dad doesn’t want me to have anything to do with the war. He refuses to let me help. He thinks I’ll, like, insult the Emperor and ruin the entire summit, probably.”

Ardyn chuckles. “The Emperor scarcely trusts me in meetings. I have a tendency to be a tad too _facetious_ for most people’s tastes. It tends to get in the way of diplomatic meetings.”

Noctis stares at him, not quite believing it. “You mean you get kicked out of meetings because you make jokes?”

“It has been known to happen.”

There’s a pause. “Have you ever made, like, an _inappropriate_ joke?”

Ardyn waves his hand. “I may have made a comment that upset the Emperor this morning,” he admits, with the air of a smug cat. “In my defense, someone needed to point out how phallic the robe he had chosen looked.”

The laugh tears out of Noctis so fiercely it shocks even him. He watches as Ardyn’s composure cracks, mouth curling up in a genuine smile that he tries to hide in his shirt collar.

“One time I made fun of a duchess’s dress at a party because the flowers on the fabric looked like, you know. She overhead me.” Noctis wipes at his eyes, gasping for breath. “I got grounded for two weeks.”

“Two peas in a pod, aren’t we?” Ardyn says.

Their laughter dies down slowly, and Noctis leans back in his seat, smiling. The stars slowly streak across the manufactured sky above them. “You know, you’re not that bad.”

“Glad to hear it,” Ardyn says, suddenly sounding uncomfortable. Before Noctis can ask what’s wrong, he stands and makes a show of stretching. Noctis absolutely does not let his eyes linger on the way Ardyn’s chest puffs out, or at how his legs are actually pretty long and fit under his pinstriped trousers. “Shall we depart?”

“Yeah, ‘course,” Noctis says, scurrying to the door, wondering what the hell has gotten into him today.

\---

They sit together in the gardens, on the edge of an elaborate fountain adorned with a statue of a woman pouring water out of a vase. Noctis chose it over the fountain with Leviathan, water streaming out of the angry goddess’s mouth, partially because this one offers a better view of the flowerbeds and partially because he’s sure if he sits under Leviathan's image right now, she'll see his doubt and slither out of the ocean to smite him.

He points out all the different species that grow in the garden, firing off where they grow, what they're used for, why they were selected to grow here… it's an old routine, useless things he learned in tutoring sessions as a child, but Ardyn makes it bearable by interjecting little stories about the places Noctis mentions. He leans in eagerly, finding that he'd much rather sit here listening to Ardyn talk; there's a whole world outside Insomnia's Wall that he's never seen, places he'd scarcely been interested in before he heard Ardyn weave poeticisms about them. Ardyn seems content to talk, so Noctis lets him, contributing an occasional question or joke and generally letting himself have a good time.

This isn’t nearly as bad as he thought it would be. He might even go as far as to say it’s not bad at all.

"We've got flowers from Niflheim, too," Noctis says after Ardyn mentions the pine trees in his country. "They're not in here, though."

"Oh? Where might they be?" Ardyn asks. "Most of Niflheim's native plantlife was wiped out when the Glacian set off her eternal winter decades ago. I’d be very interested to see any specimens you have."

"They're, uh…" Noctis wrings his hands, wondering if he should do this. He shouldn't, really—it's a private place, open only to him and his dad—but Ardyn won't be here long, and he's already mentioned the flowers anyway. It seems like a waste not to show him. "Come with me."

Ardyn raises a brow at Noctis's hushed command, but follows obediently. They weave a path across patterned stones, under sunlight streaming through the leaves and birds singing in their nests, and slowly make their way to the back of the garden. There's a door there, half hidden by rose bushes and vines. Noctis taps in the code to open it and slips inside, tugging Ardyn in by the scarf hanging around his shoulders.

"Oh, my," Ardyn says, taking in Aulea's secret garden.

“The Niflheimr stuff is over there,” Noctis says, pointing them out. They’re tiny bushes that hug close to the ground, with blooms in purple and blue and yellow. “They’re delicate, so don’t touch them.”

“I haven’t seen those blossoms in years,” Ardyn says, admiring the little flowers. “I take it you didn’t plant them?”

Noctis considers not telling him, but, well, he’s told Ardyn worse things already, and there’s something about his inquisitive amber eyes that’s drawing him in, compelling him to let it out.

“My mother loved plants,” he says softly. He drags Ardyn over to sit on the old metal bench. "I mean, that's what dad told me. He would know, right? She wanted to keep gardening after she became queen, but it wouldn't be appropriate for her to be seen doing something so…"

"So undignified as digging around in the dirt?"

"Yeah, that." Noctis leans back, relaxing in the shade. The garden is small, a fraction of the size of the royal gardens just beyond its door, but it's stuffed full; the arbor around them is rusted but still strong, a beautiful latticework covered in vines and flowers. Plants spring up from the ground wherever any bit of sunshine gets through. The old garden bench off in the corner is covered in pots and shovels and little gnomes and fairies that have ended up here over the years. A bucket next to the bench holds the potting soil; mushrooms grow near its base. It’s all cool and cozy. "She wanted to plant flowers from all over, including stuff that wouldn’t be allowed in the royal gardens. Dad had this little place built for her. He says she spent a lot of time here before she got pregnant with me."

"And now here you are, carrying on her work." Ardyn's face is unreadable again, only the faintest hint of an expression on his features. "How admirable of you."

"It was my fault she couldn't keep taking care of it herself," Noctis argues. "Dad doesn't have the time for it. It was pretty messy a few years ago, so I just… I just come over here when I can, fix it up a bit. Just basic maintenance and stuff. You know."

A breeze rustles through the leaves, picking up dirt and pollen. Ardyn sits unnaturally still for so long, Noctis thinks he might have turned into a statue himself.

When he speaks again, his voice is soft and low, with an unnaturally blank tone. "I believe I'd like to share something with you, as a courtesy to the things you have told me today."

Noctis waits.

Ardyn tells him a story. It's a long one, full of contradictions and riddles and darkness, and although it's utterly insane Noctis can't find it within himself to doubt anything he says. At the end of it all, they turn back to face the flowers, sitting in contemplative silence.

"Why tell me any of this?" Noctis asks quietly. "Why not just kill me, get it over with?"

Ardyn huffs. "I'm not certain myself. Damn it all, I _like_ you. You’re witty and young and innocent in all this. I haven't spoken so easily to a person in many, many years."

“Huh,” is the only thing Noctis can think to say. He scratches the back of his head, thinking. “Do you, uh, want to work together?”

“Work together how?”

“I don’t know. Just… try and make things better? Without fighting.” He lets his hand brush against Ardyn’s fingers, a light touch he can easily pull away from. Ardyn flips his hand over and lets their fingers lace together. Noctis shifts, trying to find his footing again. “I’m sure we could find a way.”

“You don’t want to fight, then?” Ardyn squeezes his hand, testing the strength of his fingers.

“Not really,” Noctis admits. “It just seems so… so…”

“Are you scared, Noct?” Ardyn asks. He laughs at the glare he gets in response. “The gods themselves decided our destinies, you know. I am darkness; you are light. If Bahamut wants us to do bloody, horrible battle, then that we shall do. We have little choice in the matter.”

“Then why bother telling me?” Noctis shoots back. “You said it yourself, right? Just because we’re different doesn’t mean we can’t coexist. All we have to do is swear we won’t stab each other in the back.”

Ardyn crooks an eyebrow. “You would place your trust in me so easily?”

“Yeah,” Noctis says, heart pounding. “I would.”

A breeze ruffles through the leaves in the canopy. For a moment, Noctis thinks he feels his mother’s presence, her approval, rustling through the trees. Ardyn makes a show of tapping his finger against his chin, then grinning. “Innocent indeed. There’s not another person on this star who would turn their back to me and trust they wouldn’t end up on my dagger.”

“Well?” Noctis asks. His cheeks blush at the sheer pity in Ardyn’s smile, the way he so clearly thinks that just because he has two thousand and thirteen years on Noctis, he knows better. “Are you in, or out?”

“Perhaps it could be worth a try.” Ardyn leans in, presses his lips to Noctis’s cheek in a chaste kiss. “Very well, my dear. Consider the treaty signed.”


End file.
